


A Time to Stop Running

by Rae325



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae325/pseuds/Rae325
Summary: A jail break, a long lost wife, several reunions, and some much needed conversations
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 26
Kudos: 245





	1. Chapter 1

In the silence she can hear screaming. Half asleep the Doctor thinks there is a child who needs her help. She wakes with a start, jumps up to try to find the child whose pain permeated her dreams.

There’s only silence. Then she remembers. Her screams.

She closes her eyes and sees them. Child after child screaming as the woman who was supposed to protect them experimented on them, tortured them, killed them to watch them regenerate.

Not them. Her. The Doctor. She doesn’t remember being that small, scared girl. Or the next girl, equally scared, desperate for the woman who had been her mother to stop, crying out for her to please just stop.

The Doctor presses her hands to her ears. She needs to make the screams stop, make their sobs stop echoing in her ears. She doesn’t remember the pain. But she can see the little boy’s face contort with it as Techteun had electrocuted him, testing how much he could take before he regenerated. Techteun’s cold hard expression is now seared in the Doctor’s memory.

The Doctor feels warmth on her cheeks, only realizes she’s crying when she touches her cheeks and her hand comes away wet. She needs to run, needs to keep running until she stops thinking about that child’s screams. She wants her fam, wants some threat that they can go fight to distract her. She doesn’t want to think about the Master’s face looking so broken, and begging her to kill them both. She doesn’t want to wonder if he saw the same brokenness in her eyes. She just wants to run. But she’s trapped. Trapped alone with her thoughts. She shouldn’t be this weak. She spent millennia in a confession dial alone. She can handle this. She can escape.

The Doctor should come up with a plan. She should be logical. Instead she screams until the throat aches.

“Hello, are you in there?”

The Doctor freezes. _No._ She must be hallucinating. This can’t be real. The Doctor covers her ears. She can’t do this right now.

“Sweetie, is that you?”

The Doctor’s eyes fill again. Why does this brain keep doing this to her? It hurts too much to remember River now. Unbidden the Doctor’s mind is full of memories. Rivers fingers running through the Doctor’s hair. River’s lips pressed to the Doctor’s neck as he played the guitar in their cottage on Darillium.

“Hang on Sweetie. Just a moment and I’ll have this door open.”

Not a hallucination. The Doctor had been too distracted to remember that of course her wife would be here in Stormcage and could never resist a prison break.

“River.” The Doctor whispers the word, hardly loud enough for her own ears to hear.

“Coming dear. Breaking out of prisons is really my specialty. Good thing you married me.”

The Doctor is going to start crying again. She’s lost this woman so many times. She can’t do it again. Can’t see this young version of her wife, go on a jaunt together, and then say goodbye. It hurts too much.

But her wife has always been a force of nature, and suddenly the broken the door down and River is standing in front of the Doctor.

The Doctor looks at River as a surprised smile appears on her face at seeing the Doctor’s new face for the first time. And then nothing else matters. Even if it is just this moment, the Doctor has always been powerless to refuse the lure of more time with her wife. So even though this will hurt again very soon the Doctor runs into River’s arms.

The Doctor presses her face to her wife’s neck. It’s only been a few years for the Doctor since Darillium, but so much has happened, and the Doctor feels like she would hardly recognize the happy old man in that cottage on Darillium now. She feels like a lost child. Feels more like that hurt little girl in a lab on Gallifrey than she does the husband that River knew. She wonders if River will even want her, has never understood why River loves her when she’s only ever caused her pain.

“As much as I want to snog you silly right now, we need to get out of here. Come Doctor, the TARDIS is right outside. Can’t materialize in the cells, but she’s waiting patiently.”

The Doctor pulls herself together. “Right then wife. Time for a prison break.”

River takes the Doctor’s hand and pulls her down the hallway to a dead end where the TARDIS is waiting. The Doctor stumbles in behind River, who is already at the controls, the TARDIS humming appreciatively at the return of her favorite daughter flying her again. It makes the Doctor smile, as she sits down and watches. Even young and in Stormcage her wife is far more brilliant at piloting the TARDIS though the Doctor would never admit this out loud. The Doctor’s heart aches as she wonders how long she has to spend with River.

“We’re in the Vortex!” River exclaims turning to the Doctor. “Now it’s time for a proper hello.”

River pulls the Doctor up and into her arms, their lips meet and it feels like home. This is the home that the Doctor lost when she watched her wife get into a teleport off of Darillium. The Doctor could lose herself in this feeling; she could forget the world and just stay right here in her wife’s arms. But River breaks their kiss far too quickly, one sob against the Doctor’s mouth turning into tears as River buries her face in the Doctor’s neck. “River, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry Doctor.”

River rarely cries and the Doctor finds herself growing more fearful as she holds her wife. The Doctor weaves her fingers into River’s curls, kisses her head, and breathes in her scent. She smells different. Smells like artron energy, smells new. “You’re scaring me,” the Doctor whispers into River’s hair.

“I never thought I would see you again,” River sobs.

“What?” The Doctor tries to work out when River could have thought that. She just assumed this River was in Stormcage, but maybe she had been wrong. “When are you River?”

River takes a moment to respond, takes deep breaths, and the Doctor wonders why her wife seems so afraid of answering this question. River pulls back but doesn’t meet the Doctor’s eyes. “I just left the Library. I don’t know how long I was in that data core for, but he downloaded me.”

“Who? How?” The Doctor’s hearts are pounding. This can’t be real. She’s dreamed of this for centuries, but there was no way.

River finally meets her eyes. “The Master. He said he had broken you on Gallifrey, and he thought you might need me now.”

“Why would he do that? I don’t understand how you’re here. It wasn’t possible.”

“This regeneration of the Master is quite a talker. He went on for ages about Time Lord genetic code. My mind was a bit addled at the time, but he said something about building me out of you with endless regenerations. I don’t know what he did Doctor. I don’t know what I am now. I just left the Library and the TARDIS called me and sent me to you. And here I am. But I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was so disoriented when the Master pulled me out. He’s somehow even less patient than Missy. He got bored of my brain still being addled and left as soon as he made sure I was alive.”

There’s so much to process. The Master who just tried to kill her and himself and who gloated about breaking her had escaped Gallifrey and gone to save the Doctor’s wife? Why would he do that? How? But that doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is River – here and solid in front of her. “You’re really here?” the Doctor asks, her voice trembling. “You’re alive?”

“Best I can tell.”

The Doctor looks at River, finally sees how afraid her wife looks. Of course she’s afraid. She was just reborn, her body new again and mind still confused. And still she rescued the Doctor. Her brilliant wife.

“Oh River Song.” The Doctor rubs her thumb under River’s eyes, wiping away the moisture on her cheeks. “Still as brilliant as ever. I can’t believe you’re really here.” The Doctor’s eyes fill with tears, her emotions are already close to the surface after the Master and Gallifrey and the memories. And now somehow the impossible has happened and her wife is alive. The Doctor pulls River into a hug. “What do you need my love? It must be a shock. How long were you in the data core? Do you feel alright?”

“I’m fine Doctor. I just broke you out of prison remember?”

“Of course you did because you are the strongest person I know. But now you let me take care of you. Med-bay now.”

“I’m fine, really. I don’t need to be checked over. I just need…” River’s voice drops off; she sounds uncertain in a way the Doctor hasn’t heard since before Darillium. It breaks the Doctors hearts.

“What? Anything you need I will give it to you. Just tell me River.”

“I need my wife. At least for a little while, could we just stay here together?”

“Forever River. For as long as you will have me.”

“You never expected that, and I can’t ask it or you. You knew when I would die.”

“And it nearly killed me knowing I was going to lose you. The years we spent together on Darillium were the happiest of all my lives. Saying goodbye to you was like losing a part of my soul.”

River sobs.

“You still don’t know?” the Doctor asks, hating herself for not having convinced her wife, for letting River die still doubting. She fails everyone she loves. The Doctor takes River’s hand in her free one and presses them to her chest over one of her hearts. “I’m so sorry.”

“Those were the happiest years of my life too. I thought I would be restless, but I could have spent my whole life in that cottage with you.”

The Doctor’s hearts stutter. “You still could spend your life with me.” She waits for River to shoot her down and tell her that they can’t travel together, that an eternity together would be too much.

The Doctor gathers her courage and looks at River. River’s gaze is still guarded, and the Doctor wants desperately for her wife to let her guard down like she had done when they were together on Darillium. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it Doctor. Please. I am not strong enough for that.”

“You are the strongest person I know River Song.”

“I don’t want to be strong anymore Doctor. I didn’t have to be for 24 years. I could just be myself. Maybe for the first time in my life.”

“Do you have any idea how grateful I am for that River? Please. Travel with me. Let me see you again like you let me see you on Darillium.”

“Traveling together is a different thing when there’s no time limit,” River says, her free hand settling on the Doctor’s waist and making her body hum with her wife’s proximity.

“If you hate traveling with me you can leave,” the Doctor promises, though even the thought hurts. “I know this face is new, but maybe you could learn to love it too.”

“Don’t be daft. I love every one of your faces. This one may be my favorite.”

“I will not get tired of you River Song. Not a chance.” River’s eyes are downcast, and the Doctor tilts her chin up to look at her. “I’m going to prove it to you, I promise. I love you.”

“This body’s awfully sentimental.”

“When it comes to my wife I am. Come River, let me take care of you.”

“I’m supposed to take care of you. I remember bits of what the Master told me. That he destroyed Gallifrey, and that you aren’t who you thought you were. He didn’t tell me details.”

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, please let me look after you. Med-bay first. Then a shower. Then a nap. I could use a good nap with my wife.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got a bit smutty.

“See, perfectly fine. Can I get up now?” River asks.

The Doctor looks at the scanner, trying to understand how this can be real. “You have regeneration energy. I just want to check again. I need to make sure everything is ok. The Master wanted to destroy me – no better way to do that than to hurt you.”

River sits up and takes the Doctor’s hand. “Sweetie, breathe. I’m here. And the Master loves you. He has in every regeneration of him – and her – that I’ve met. We’ll figure out the new quirks of my biology another time. I’m here now. This time is something I never expected, so please just let me get used to having a body again before we do anything else.”

“I’m sorry River. I didn’t mean to- I know how much you hate medical tests. I know why.” It hits the Doctor how similar their childhoods were without the Doctor ever knowing. River hadn’t remembered much of her childhood – too many Silents there when she was being tortured for her to remember more than bits and pieces – until she’d travelled back in time to witness it for herself. But River had always had a hatred of medical procedures, even hated being in the TARDIS’ med-bay. The Doctor will never forget the time that her wife had been injured and woken up in the med-bay with IVs and with a breathing tube and panicked. The Doctor had been older than River then, had understood why she was afraid, had sat with her and calmed her, reminded her where she was and that she was safe. “What do you need River?” the Doctor intertwines her fingers with River’s, feels her wife stroking back and forth against her hands.

“I need to feel things again. Things that are real. Everything in the data core felt real, but now remembering it - nothing felt like this.” She keeps running her hands over the Doctor’s almost frantically trying to absorb the sensation of her skin.

“I’m here River. And so are you.” The Doctor snakes their joined hands under River’s shirt. River is warm and solid under her, and it’s a reassurance to the Doctor as much as it seems to be to River who relaxes into the Doctor’s touch. “Will you come shower with me?” the Doctor asks. “I want to take you to bed, but I need to wash first.” She still feels dirty – covered in the ashes of her home planet and the grime of the prison cell.

River looks up with a glint in her eyes. “You’re awfully forward this go around.”

“Only with you, wife.”

“Tell me sweetie, how new is this body?”

“I may have tried some of your old toys. Just for science sake. To test the difference in how a female body responds.” The Doctor’s cheeks heat a bit, but River just stares at her with love and want.

“I can’t wait to find out for myself.”

“You first. We need to help you feel, remember? I can’t think of a better way.”

The Doctor leads River by the hand to the en suite through their bedroom.

River freezes as soon as they enter the threshold to their bedroom. “You kept my things here?” Her eyes dart to the photos of them together, to River’s diary on the shelf, her archeological finds that Doctor always teased her for.

“It’s our room.”

“You didn’t think you would ever see me again.”

“Sentimental idiot, remember?” The Doctor smiles at her wife. She shrugs off her coat and kicks off her shoes. She needs to wash everything – she can still smell the faint scent of burning on her clothes. She thinks of the Master, so many conflicting feelings for her oldest friend that she feels like her head will explode if she thinks about him too much. She’s broken out of her thoughts by River’s laugh.

“Oh sweetie, that outfit.”

“My outfit is brilliant.” The Doctor feels familiar hands pull her braces from her shoulders. The Doctor’s hands find River’s waist. She unbuttons River’s trousers and pulls River’s shirt from her pants encouraging River to raise her arms so the Doctor can remove her shirt. The Doctor looks at River’s lace bra with an appreciative hum. The Doctor’s fingers run across River’s collar bone and down over her breasts. Her wife’s skin is so familiar, soft and smooth and exactly how the Doctor remembers. The Doctor unclasps River’s bra, removes the garment from her wife. “So beautiful,” the Doctor whispers, leaning down to kiss the swell of River’s breast, she kisses across her wife’s breast, soft kisses until her mouth engulfs River’s nipple, sucking in the way she remembers her wife has always enjoyed. River’s hands thread into the Doctor’s hair and she moans her appreciation.

The Doctor spends a moment lavishing River’s nipples with attention, listening to her wife’s moans of appreciation. River’s fingers are in the Doctor’s hair. The Doctor missed this, realizes this body hadn’t been much for touch until now, but suddenly her body feels like it’s barely felt anything since regeneration, can hardly remember a gentle touch in this body.

River reaches down and tugs at the Doctor’s shirts. “I want to feel you,” River whines. The Doctor quickly yanks her clothes off before returning her attention to her wife’s other nipple. River’s hands find the clasp of her bra, unsnapping it and easing it from the Doctor’s arms. She’s burning already, this body is more sexual than her last few have been, and she feels desperate, needs River to touch her. River’s hands are on her back, and even that has her skin buzzing. “Who took you bra shopping sweetie?” River asks catching the Doctor off guard. “I expected worse from your first female body, but that bra fit you perfectly.”

“Not my first female body,” the Doctor says before she remembers to stop herself.

“What?” River asks.

“I’ll tell you, but please, first I want this.” The Doctor hears her own voice crack. “I need to be with you.”

River urges the Doctor up to kiss her again. They’re pressed together, the Doctor’s nipples sensitive as they rub against River’s skin. Each stroke of River’s tongue lighting the Doctor up more. She grinds against River, desperate for more friction. River’s hands find the Doctor’s still covered backside, urging them closer and making the Doctor moan into her wife’s mouth. This body is awfully noisy. She didn’t realize that. It seems to please River greatly and the Doctor can feel her smile against her mouth. River’s fingers are reaching around then and unzipping her trousers. “Want to feel you,” the Doctor says as she pulls the last of her clothes off, watching River do the same, until they are standing bare in front of each other.

The Doctor admires her wife. She knows the body is new, but she looks just the same as when she had died in the library. The thought of that day so many years ago almost make the Doctor lose her thoughts to grief. But she focuses on her wife in front of her. “So beautiful,” the Doctor whispers, thinking of this gift the universe had given her.

“And you, sweetie, are absolutely stunning. Will you let me take you to bed and learn all about what your new body likes?”

“Brilliant idea. Shower later. Wife now.”

“Can I just say that I love this body? So eager and responsive.” River backs the Doctor up until she bumps into the bed. “Lay back,” River instructs. “Let me take care of you.”

“I should take care of you,” the Doctor protests. “You’re the one who just came back to life.”

“Trust me Doctor, this will make me incredibly happy. Lie down. Let’s take this body of yours out for a spin.”

The Doctor lays down and River is immediately right where she wants her. River’s tongue licks up the Doctor’s opening, dipping inside briefly before moving up to lick the Doctor’s clit. It feels like nothing the Doctor has ever experienced before. River’s tongue keeps up the little flicks before latching on to the Doctor’s clit and sucking. The Doctor keens. “Oh never made that noise before!”

River chuckles, the huff of breath tickling the Doctor’s already sensitive body. River moves her tongue lower again dipping inside her body. It feels amazing, less intense but so good, sends shivers through her whole body. River presses her tongue in deeper, her nose bumping the Doctor’s clit, and the Doctor is overwhelmed by how intimate it feels to have River inside her. River’s mouth is moving back to her clit, sucking, and the Doctor thinks she is going to come far too quickly if her wife keeps this up. She almost protests before remembering that this body can have multiple orgasms. Then River is easing a finger inside her and pressing up against the spot that the Doctor had found one day that make everything feel so much more. It feels so good and so vulnerable in a way that fills her with warmth and love for River. The Doctor is whimpering again, and River keeps up the pressure until the Doctor can feel the sensations crashing around her. River keeps licking at her until she’s oversensitive and urges her wife up towards her.

“Oh Doctor, you are magnificent,” River whispers as she kisses a trail up the Doctor’s stomach and chest before sucking on her neck.

The Doctor chuckles, weaves her hand into River’s curls. “Marking me?”

“Yes,” River answers, before licking the Doctor’s neck.

“Good, because I’m yours River Song.”

“Yes, you are.” The Doctor says confidently. She thinks she’s never meant anything more in all her lives. River looks up and meets the Doctor’s eyes. To the Doctor’s concerns, her wife is frowning. “What?”

“Why are you crying?” River asks, looking suddenly worried. 

“Didn’t realize I was. Just a bit overwhelmed I suppose. That was different. The really, really good kind of different. And I have my wife back. I didn’t expect to ever see you again, and now you’re here with me, and I don’t have to say goodbye again.”

“Better not,” River teases.

The Doctor opens her arms, urging River to lean on her chest as the Doctor wraps her wife up in a hug. “Not a chance. I love you.” They rarely say those words to each other, are far more likely to utter _I hate you_ , but after everything that’s happened some things need to be said.

“I love you too,” River whispers.

“Good,” the Doctor says. “Because it seems like you are stuck with me Professor Song. Now let me make you feel as good as you made me feel.”

“In a moment sweetie. Want to lie in your arms a little longer.” The Doctor really can’t argue with that.


	3. Chapter 3

This is the calmest the Doctor’s body has felt since she dug up Ruth’s TARDIS months ago. River’s arms are wrapped around the Doctor, their skin pressed together fresh and clean after a long hot bath. River’s hands are soothing up and down the Doctor’s back, and the Doctor sighs contentedly and nuzzles into the crook of River’s neck. The Doctor didn’t give much thought to physical sensation in this body until now. Some of her regenerations are so tactile, but this one hasn’t been one to seek out touch. But now that she has it, the Doctor finds that she’s greedy for more.

“Penny for your thoughts Sweetie,” River asks.

The Doctor has so many thoughts right now, still hasn’t managed to calm her mind though her body hums with contentedness. She settles on the most pressing thought. “How long were you in the Data Core?”

“Time didn’t exist there in the same way.”

“I’m so sorry River. Was it awful for you?”

“It wasn’t,” River says. The Doctor angles herself so she can look into her wife’s eyes, glad when River holds her gaze. “I had a daughter. It wasn’t real of course, but Cal needed someone, and I suppose I needed someone too.” There are tears in River’s eyes as she says it.

The Doctor’s heart aches for her wife. “What happened to her?”

“The Master destroyed the Data Core pulling me out. Everyone else was deleted.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault Sweetie.”

“The Master has hurt so many people just to get to me. And now he’s hurt you too. He killed a child who you considered a daughter. I’m just so sorry for everything you’ve lost.”

“It doesn’t exactly feel real yet. I’ve never been very good at grieving. I prefer to run.”

“You don’t have to this time. I’ll stay still with you if it helps. Or we can run together. But I am not going to leave you again.” River presses an appreciative kiss to the Doctor’s lips. The Doctor understands. They both struggle to talk about their pain and that will take some time. What matters now is that River is here and letting the Doctor hold her. They’re not running from each other, and that’s a start.

“What about you?” River asks. “What happened to you. And do not say nothing. I know your eyes. I can see how sad you are.”

“I’m not sad. I have my wife back.”

“We can be happy and sad at the same time. If you aren’t ready to tell me that’s alright, but please don’t lie to me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I trusted someone to know that much of me.” She thinks of Darillium, of nightmares of being in the confession dial, of her guilt over Clara’s death. She thinks of River’s soothing kisses, of River’s fingers running through her grey hair, of River’s thoughts reaching into the Doctor’s mind to soothe. “Not since the last time I was with you.”

River looks stunned. “Have you been traveling alone? I sent Nardole –“

The Doctor laughs. “He told me that you gave him permission to kick my ass.”

“I thought you might need it Sweetie. I didn’t want you moping around and missing me.”

“I never stopped missing you. Nardole was a good man. He sacrificed himself to protect a colony of humans from the Cybermen. One more person who I got killed with my recklessness.” The weight of what happed on that colony ship aches like it a fresh wound after the Doctor’s recent encounter with the Master and the Cybermen. She’s so ashamed, but she can’t keep this inside with River here next to her. “I trusted Missy – I thought she was changing, and I gave her a chance. I gave her Bill.” The Doctor looks away. “Bill told me she was afraid of Missy and asked me to promise not to get her killed. I didn’t keep my promise. I wanted to believe I could have my friend back so badly that I let it cloud my judgment and I got Bill killed. The Master killed her because I trusted him. I am not going to make that mistake again.”

“What happened after that? It wasn’t Missy who saved me. It was another Master – one who told me he left you in the ashes of Gallifrey. He told me that you escaped but that you would never escape the truth he showed you. What did he show you?”

“I have no right to feel bad for myself right now. What he told me shouldn’t matter.”

“Tell me.” River’s voice is firm, her eyes determined, and the Doctor hates herself for considering burdening River with this when River herself has lived through something so similar.

“He showed me my past. He showed me faces I don’t remember living because the Time Lords erased them from my memory. I can’t stop seeing what they did to me.”

River intertwines their fingers. “If it easier to show me or tell me?”

“Show you,” the Doctor whispers. “But I don’t want to hurt you. It’s too much like what Kovarian did to you, and I don’t want to make you think of that.”

“Please show me. Trust me.” River lifts her hand to the Doctor’s temple.

“I do,” the Doctor whispers, letting River’s mind connect to hers. The Doctor leans forward, shows her wife memories of the small girl she was, alone under a portal to a home that the Doctor cannot remember. She shows River the image of Techteun experimenting on the next girl, hurting her more and more until one day the child’s body gave out after a shock of electricity and regenerated. The Doctor can almost feel the pain of her skin burning as she remembers. River’s hands soothe up and down her arms, keep her from being completely lost in her mind. She shows River the next child, the experiments, the screams, being strapped to that table, needles in her arms as she cried. That girl had been so sensitive to pain, that child’s body weaker, pushed to regenerate so quickly. Those screams fill the Doctor’s memory and she can feel River becoming upset herself. The Doctor pulls back. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I know you were restrained and experimented on, and I don’t want to show you things that make you remember. I shouldn’t have shown you River. I was selfish.”

“It is similar,” River acknowledges. “But it hurts to know you were tortured. I’m not hurting because I’m remembering my childhood. I’m hurting for what you suffered.”

“I don’t remember it.”

“That doesn’t make it any less awful. That monster murdered you again and again and then she stole that piece of your life from you. You can show me the rest. I know there’s more. You pulled away to protect me.” River kisses the Doctor’s lips softly before continuing. “You held me through so many nightmares of half remembered torture. I can do the same for you. You do not need to protect me.”

The Doctor’s ears are filled with screams, with her own pleading for her mother to stop hurting her. “I am so angry. I want to find them and hurt them. The Time Lords stole my DNA and used it to give themselves the ability to regenerate. I can’t talk to them. I don’t know what to do with this anger. What’s worse is how weak I feel.” Her throat feels tight as the puts words to her thoughts, “I can’t stop feeling violated by what they did.”

“Just let yourself feel it now. I’m here. You can show me, and you can talk to me, and you can lie in my arms and cry if you need to Doctor.”

“I don’t deserve to cry about this. It was so long ago.” But she is so desperate for someone else to know, someone who loves her and won’t hurt her with this knowledge like the Master did. “Can I show you the rest? She killed three more faces before she figured it out. I can’t stop hearing their screams.”

River runs her fingers through the Doctor’s hair. “Your screams. That’s you, sweetie. Even if you don’t remember when you were that child, that pain is still something that you felt.”

The Doctor nods. “It went on for years. I feel so vulnerable and violated. I told the Master that this makes me more not less. But I just feel used.”

“Show me,” River asks. The Doctor opens her mind and shows River the other children. The years of pain. The bloodletting. The electric shock to stop her heart. The drowning to see how long her respiratory bypass lasts. The near deaths that were more painful than the ones where she regenerated because her body wouldn’t stop hurting. The Doctor shows River the Master, his taunts as he begged her to kill them both. She shows River everything that’s happened over these last weeks, every choice that the Doctor hates herself for, every fear that the Master taunted her with.

The Doctor feels River’s soothing presence in her memories, easing the ache as the Doctor focuses on her wife in front of her. River is stroking her cheek as the Doctor opens her eyes. “I’m here with you, and you’re safe now. You can let yourself stand still and feel.”

“Can’t stand still. My fam thinks that I died. The Master is out there somewhere.”

River kisses the Doctor again. “Time machine,” she reminds. “Would it make you feel better to find your friends and let them know you’re alive?” The Doctor nods. “Go see them. But after that you need a nap before you go out looking for the Master. Please Sweetie, don’t run this time.”

“River Song! I told you, I am not running from you ever again. I just got my wife back, and I am not letting you out of my sight. Do you think I am going to miss the chance to show you off to my fam? Graham is going to love you. Jack already kissed him. But you’re not allowed to River. You’re only allowed to kiss me.” River smiles brightly and leans in to kiss the Doctor again, and the Doctor thinks that for a little longer she can let herself get lost in her wife.


	4. Chapter 4

River never thought she would see the Doctor again. She had died in that library staring into eyes that didn’t know her. River’s mind still feels fuzzy, unsure how long she lived a half life of pretending to be a doting mother. Her heart aches for the girl whose consciousness had been trapped with her – Cal – the only other person in there that was more than an echo. But she also knows how weary Cal had been and how much she wanted it to end. And though it hurts more than River could have imagined, she hopes the child finally has some peace.

River focuses on what she has now, a tentative, terrifying start to a new life. River loves her wife desperately. But living together is another thing. They had managed it for 24 years in a cottage just the two of them. It meant more to River than she had ever managed to put words to, some part of her always worrying that the Doctor couldn’t possibly feel the same way. The Doctor had lived so long and loved so many people, and River held on to the doubt that she could occupy a unique place in the Doctor’s life. But oh how those years had changed everything for River. She had never felt so loved or safe or settled before.

“Are you ok?” the Doctor asks. River must have been staring while the Doctor pulled clothes from her dresser.

“Just admiring the new body.”

The Doctor fixes River with a stare that unnerves River, feels like her wife can see into her soul. “No, that’s not it. You’re worried I’m going to leave.”

“Since when are you so good at reading people Sweetie?”

The Doctor frowns, puts down the clothes in her arms and climbs back on the bed, straddling River’s lap, still naked. But the Doctor’s face is so serious and so sad that River knows she is not about to be seduced again. “I can read _you_. I have been able to since I spent the best years of my life living with you, finally in the right order. I know it wasn’t enough to make up for how I hurt you.”

“Sweetie, no. You were perfect.”

“I was a stupid old man, but I was just as hopelessly in love with you as I am right now. I didn’t stay because I knew our time together would end. I stayed despite knowing. It almost broke my heart every day to love you so much and count down the moments until I had to say goodbye. Please River for the first time in our lives can we just be together without thinking about how we are going to lose each other? ” The Doctor’s eyes are filling with tears, and River thinks about how open this new face is, so soft and exposed. The Doctors fingers twine with River’s. “You died the day I met you, and it hurt every day to fall more in love with you knowing that was in the future. For the first time I can love you without knowing I am going to lose you.” Tears run down the Doctor’s cheeks and River reaches up to wipe them away, her fingers tracing the lines of her wife’s face. “I just want to live our lives in the right direction. And maybe we’ll get restless. You can take a break from me any time you want and have your own adventures. But I’ll be waiting for you to come back. I want to be a proper wife to you. I want to finally be with you without the expiration date. Nothing could make me happier. And I don’t know if you’re afraid or if you aren’t sure that you want to spend eternity with me.”

River shakes her head, crying now too. “I’ve always wanted to spend eternity with you, and that terrifies me. I’m a psychopath.”

The Doctor lunges forward and cuts River off with a kiss. “I will not have you speaking of my wife that way. I love you so much you idiot. Please just be with me River. We’ll figure out the details. I don’t know anything right now. I don’t know where I’m from or what species I am or how long I’ve been alive or how long I will be. But I know that I just got my wife back after thinking I lost you forever, and there is nothing that could make me happier. I know that I love you River Song.”

River looks into her wife’s eyes. She really is an open book this go around. It helps calm River to see that certainty so clearly in her wife’s eyes. “Sorry Sweetie,” River says, her fingers running though the Doctor’s hair. “It seems that adjusting to being alive again has made me a bit insecure.”

“Well Professor Song I will be right here to reassure you any time you need.” The Doctor is kissing River again, soft and gentle as the Doctor’s fingers get lost in River’s hair. River smiles, remembers that the Doctor has never been able to resist River’s curls, fingers always stuck and ruining River’s perfectly styled hair. This is what River has always dreamed of but never let herself imagine - an end to the aching loneliness she’s never been rid of. A life with the only being in the universe who seems to understand her. And well River may be fucked up, but she is not an idiot, and she is not going to run from this.

The Doctor pulls back to look River in the eye. “You won’t go running away will you River? I won’t wake up one morning and find you left because you’re afraid I’m going to leave you first?”

“When did you become such a talker Sweetie?”

“Talking is brilliant. Especially if it lets me convince you that I’m right here in your arms and I am not going anywhere.”

“Go get dressed. I’m not running away.”

The Doctor frowns. “Of all the things I never imagined I would hear, you telling me to get dressed is at the very top of the list.”

“You wore me out,” River tells the Doctor, her body feeling properly seen to and relaxed. “Do you know we’ve been at it for almost an earth day?”

“What? No!”

“Yes,” River laughs. “Aren’t you the one who prides herself on being good with time.”

“Easy to lose track of when I’m busy getting to know my wife again.”

“This body is wonderful Sweetie. In case you still aren’t sure how I like it.”

The Doctor blushes. It always strikes River as funny that her wife in all her incarnations blushes at any slightly suggestive comment, when so recently the Doctor was buried between River’s legs moaning indecently while eating River out. The Doctor climbs off River again, and this time River does just stare at her wife and appreciate the view as she picks up her ridiculous striped shirt and cut off pants. River smiles – same awful fashion sense. But the Doctor _is_ different now, kinder, more open, changed by Darillium, River thinks, just as River herself undoubtedly is.


	5. Chapter 5

“Yaz, come sit please.” Graham watches the young woman moving around his house, cleaning, boiling water for tea, doing anything she can, he knows, to distract herself from feeling the inevitable grief when she lets herself think of the Doctor. The reality of what happened to them these last days is hitting Graham himself now as he sinks into his cough, body slumping in complete exhaustion. Ryan has fallen asleep on the other side of the couch. They’ve both been running for months, Graham thinks, running to avoid being back here in this house they lived in with Grace.

Graham hears a crash in the kitchen and looks up to see Yaz surrounded by a shattered teacup, looking stunned. “I’m sorry Graham. So clumsy.”

Graham stands, his body protesting. He wonders if there’s a single part of him that doesn’t ache right now. “I’ll get it Yaz.”

“No, I’ll clean it up. It’s my fault.”

Graham walks to the young woman he’s come to think of as a daughter. Her hands are trembling, and he takes them in his. “Yasmin. Why don’t you sit down with Ryan and I’ll take care of everything?”

“I can’t.” She finally looks up and him, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m still waiting for her to come back.”

“I know.” Graham tells her. He wonders if Yaz has ever lost someone before. He feels so old. He misses the Doc even more in this moment. For all her antics and running, she understood loss just as Graham had. She’d hardly said anything, but he’d seen her one night in the TARDIS’ library caressing an old worn blue diary and Graham had known without a word that the Doctor and he shared the same pain. He briefly wonders if the Doctor’s willingness to sacrifice herself had something to do with being old and alone and having lost her family. Graham doesn’t know if he believes in anything, but he hopes that the Doc is with her family again.

Graham is certain he is hallucinating when he hears it. It’s been an unbearably long day, and he’s almost become used to not trusting his senses with how often he swears he hears Grace’s voice or smells her perfume. But then Ryan is jumping off the couch and Graham turns to look at him and sees the TARDIS shimmering into focus.

The moment the box is fully materialized Yaz is sprinting towards it and pulling the door open. Graham watches her disappear inside, stunned for a moment as he watches Ryan follow Yaz. Graham follows them too, holds his breath, bracing for the worst, just in case. But when he walks inside he can see the Doctor engulfed in Yaz and Ryan’s arms

Graham’s eyes shift then to a woman he’s never met leaning against the console, a warm smile on her face as she watches the Doctor.

“Hello,” he greets the woman, walking to her with an outstretched hand.

The Doctor seems to notice his presence from the hug that Ryan and Yaz still have her wrapped in. “Hiya Graham.”

“Hi Doc. Good to have you back.” He catches her eyes and smiles. She seems weary and tired, but happy at the same time. Graham looks back to the woman next to him. “Graham O’Brien.”

“River Song. Pleasure to meet you.”

The Doctor pulls herself slightly out of the hug their friends seem intent on never ending. “Remember what I said River. No snogging my fam.”

“Doc, do all your friends go around snogging strangers?”

“Not all of them no, but well Jack and River do rather enjoy that. And River isn’t my friend.” Graham watches the Doc as her face goes soft and warm in a way he’s never seen before. The Doctor turns to meet the other woman’s eyes. “She’s my wife.” The way they smile at each other makes Graham feels like he’s intruding on something intensely personal.

“Your wife?!” Ryan asks in shock.

“My wife, who happens to be brilliant at breaking people out of prison, which is very useful.”

Graham closes the distance between himself and the Doc. “It’s good to have you back.” He pulls her into a hug.

“I’m so sorry for putting you all in danger. I should never have taken you lot with me to fight the Cybermen. I almost got you all killed.”

Yaz walks forward. “But you didn’t.”

“You were lucky Yaz.” The Doc seems frustrated and tired and Graham thinks he can understand that. He had felt the same unflinching confidence as Yaz until they faced the Cybermen. He had never let himself believe that anything bad could happen to them, but now when they came so close to dying Graham understands why the Doc had looked so terrified back when the Cyberman had showed up when they were visiting Mary Shelly. They did almost die. Graham willingly went with Ryan into a situation where they could have died.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says. “I’m angry at myself, not you Yaz. It was my fault for bringing you there. It’s my job to keep you safe, and I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail us!” Yaz insists. “You got us all home.”

“How about we not argue tonight?” Graham suggests. He’s going to need to think more about what the future should hold for himself and Ryan, but he knows that right now he just wants to enjoy the fact that they all somehow made it back alive. “Tonight should be a time for celebration.”

River Song jumps in at that suggestion. “I love a celebration. I left some incredible Darillium champagne in the cupboard. Should still be there unless the Doctor drank it all in the last century.”

“What?” Graham asks, and hears his question echoed by Yaz and Ryan.

“I’ve been dead for a while,” River adds cheerfully. “But as you can see, I’m not anymore.”

Graham briefly thinks that this must be the strangest woman he’s ever met, but really isn’t that exactly who he would expect the Doc to be married to.

“Alright you lot,” the Doctor says, bounding forward. “Champagne under a starry sky. Come along.”

***

Soon they’re sat in Graham’s favorite room in the TARDIS – a large living room with soft cushioned couching, warm rugs, beautiful antique lamps, and a ceiling that sees through to the sky around them. The Doc had told him once that the TARDIS changes for everyone who comes on board, and he wonders if the ship made this room for him. Yaz and Ryan are each on a couch passed out star gazing through the beautiful ceiling. Graham, despite his exhaustion at the day, doesn’t feel ready to sleep just yet.

The Doctor is leaning heavily on River’s shoulder, River’s arm holding the Doc tightly. Graham wonders if he’s intruding, after all, assuming River wasn’t joking, it seems like they’ve just been reunited after a very long time.

“Don’t let me stand in the way of you two having alone time.”

The Doc smiles contentedly. “I’m quite happy sitting here with all my fam right now.” She picks up River’s hand and brings it to her lips for a soft kiss.

River chuckles. “The champagne’s turned you soft Sweetie.”

Graham must be staring at them in shock - certainly feels a bit shocked to see the Doctor being so physically affectionate with anyone – because she sits up a bit and looks at him very seriously. “I’m sorry Graham. I imagine it must be hard to see us together when you’re missing Grace. At least it was for me for a long time after I lost River.”

River presses a sweet kiss to the Doctor’s hair. Graham has never seen the Doc let anyone care for her, and now he wonders if that has to do with having lost the woman whose arms she’s currently wrapped up in.

“It does, but it also makes me happy. I care about you Doc. We’re family, and I’m glad that you have your wife back. I’ve never seen you look so happy.”

Graham watches River’s eyes fill with tears and he wonders what it must be like to be married to an immortal alien, probably not the most straight forward relationship. But then the idea hits him. “Wait are you an alien too?”

The Doc turns to River, “You explain. I’m tired.”

River rolls her eyes in a way that remind Graham so much of the way Grace would roll her eyes when she was exasperated with him that it makes his chest ache. “I’m mostly human. Just with some added Time Lord traits.”

River trails off as she says it, looks uncomfortably at the Doc. “It’s ok,” the Doctor reassures her wife. “It’ll probably take me a while to stop referring to myself that way too.”

“I can regenerate like the Doctor,” River clarifies for Graham. “I couldn’t for a while, but I’m pretty sure I can again. That will be exciting.”

“Oi,” the Doctor says. “Give me at least a week before you start taking risks with your safety again. There’s only so much my hearts can take.”

“Hearts?”

“I told you I have two hearts,” the Doctor says, “Don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Some of the things you say don’t exactly make sense, do they?”

River laughs, and the Doctor turns to her, attempting to scowl with a face that Graham is pretty sure can’t stop smiling right now. “Don’t you start. You are not allowed to gang up on me.”

River raises a suggestive eyebrow. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you later.”

Graham watches the Doctor’s face go red. He would share her obvious embarrassment if he didn’t feel so happy for her. “I’ve never seen you so happy Doc. It suits you. You’re also bright red.”

River whispers with a devious smile. “I think that suits you too.”

“River,” the Doctor practically whines.

Graham is enjoying this far more than he could have imagined. “So how did you two meet?”

River twines her fingers with the Doctor’s before speaking. “I was created to murder the Doctor. We met the day I killed her.”

“Doesn’t seem to have stuck,” Graham notes, feeling a bit confused about how much of what these women tell him is in jest.

“That is because River is brilliant and amazing and she saved me. She’s saved me loads of times.”

“Did she save you from Gallifrey?”

“No, Ko Sharmus did,” the Doc replies, and Graham sees what he thinks look a lot like shame wash over her face. “Then the Jadoon arrested me, and River got me out of Stormcage.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, Graham. I did just mention how good River is at prison breaks didn’t I?”

He shakes his head at her fondly. He may not know much about the history of the mysterious alien he’s been following around the universe for the last two years, but he knows she’s family. And while Graham still doesn’t know if he can keep traveling with her, for now he is happy to sit in the presence of these two aliens and share in their joy.


	6. Chapter 6

_Stupid Yaz. So stupid._ What is wrong with her? Had Yaz really imagined that she had some special place in the Doctor’s life? This amazing creature who travels through time and space. A stupid crush. Yaz never would have even acknowledged she felt something more than friendship and admiration until she had seen the Doctor smiling in River’s arms and felt an awful pang of jealousy. Yaz has seen the Doctor smile plenty, but never like this. This isn’t the happiness of an adventure or a wonder of the universe, but deep joy and contentment.

The TARDIS makes what Yaz thinks is a soothing sound as she walks down the corridor to fetch the pack of Hobnobs the TARDIS kindly replenishes for her. At least the Doctor’s ship seems to like her, Yaz thinks bitterly.

Yaz stops in her tracks when she hears a noise somewhere between a scream and a sob.

“Sweetie wake up!” She hears River says. The Doctor keeps crying out though, apparently trapped in a nightmare. Yaz wants to cover her ears at the sound of her friend’s screams of pain. And then somehow even worse the screams turn into cries that sound like the sounds a scared little girl would make.

“Sweetie,” Yaz can hear River’s voice again, firm but still soothing. “Sweetie, can you wake up?”

There’s silence for a moment and then Yaz hears the Doctor apologize to her wife.

“Shh.” Yaz can hear soft hushing noises and whispered words she can’t quite make out. She can hear a few more hiccupping tears and then the Doctor’s soft laugh. Yaz feels ashamed of her jealously a moment ago, because her friend has someone who loves her, someone who the Doctor can be open with.

Yaz shouldn’t be standing here listening to something so private. She keeps walking, maybe some tea and biscuits will help quiet the noise in Yaz’s head.

The kitchen is silent, but Yaz can still hear the Doctor’s tears echoing in her ears. She feels so much for the Doctor, they’ve only known each other for two years, but Yaz feels more herself in these years than she ever has before. Yaz finally feels like she belongs somewhere, like she can be herself without the constraints of her family’s expectations for her. She’s old enough now that they’ve started asking about when she will be married, but Yaz has never been interested in that. She just rolls her eyes when her family mentions marriage and they let it go, but Yaz always has a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that one day the might decide she’s too old to keep avoiding the conversation. There’s a life she’s meant to lead, and Yaz thinks she has been trying to run away from it for a long time in so many different ways. This has been by far the most enjoyable way of running. She has a family here who accept her exactly how she is.

Yaz’s eyes are burning with tears. This is her home. Will that change now that the Doctor has her wife back? Yaz feels so selfish for even thinking about this. She should just be happy for her friend.

“Yaz!” the Doctor’s voice breaks through Yaz’s thoughts. “We’re not interrupting, are we?”

Yaz looks up to see the Doctor and River staring at her. The Doctor is wearing a pair of her normal ridiculous flannel pajamas – this one covered in smiling stars. River is wearing a robe, and Yaz briefly wonders if she has anything under it at all. Yaz wipes the moisture from her cheeks feeling self-conscious. “No of course you aren’t. It’s your ship.”

“Are you alight?” the Doctor asks, sitting down at the table and stealing one of Yaz’s Hobnobs. She takes a bite. “No still don’t like it. Shame, the last tongue was such a fan.” She hands the biscuit to River who takes it and happily starts eating as she puts the kettle on. Yaz watches River move around the kitchen. She knows this place. It’s her home, and Yaz tries to imagine what kind of life she and the Doctor had before River died.

“Yaz,” the Doctor asks, pulling Yaz from her thoughts.

“What?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Whatever is making you cry.”

Yaz shrugs. “Do you want to talk about what’s making _you_ cry?” she asks in return and then realizes she wasn’t supposed to be listening outside the Doctor’s door. The Doctor only looks slightly taken aback. Then her face softens, and she looks so kind. This is the face that Yaz remembers from when they started traveling, from before the Master appeared and the Doctor began to look so haunted.

“I’ve already talked River’s ear off.” The Doctor looks ready to move on, but she must sense Yaz’s irritation. “I know I haven’t told you much about myself. I’ve lived a long life, and sometimes it’s easier not to focus on everything that I’ve lost. Traveling with you and Ryan and Graham makes me happy, and it was easier to let myself be happy than to think about how much I missed River or the fact that the Master had destroyed Gallifrey or any of the million other things in my head.”

“What happened on Gallifrey?” Yaz asks.

River walks over then and sits down next the Doctor, twining their fingers together. Yaz feels terrible. She’s asking these questions, not to help the Doctor, but because she wants to know. “You don’t have to answer. It’s none of my business.”

“It’s ok,” the Doctor tells her. “The Master found the real history of the Time Lords buried in the Matrix.”

“What’s the Matrix?”

“It’s like a computer that stores the history of the Time Lords.”

Yaz nods and waits. In the brief silence she watches the Doctor and River’s fingers caressing each other. For the first time in her life Yaz thinks how much she wants that.

“The Time Lords creation myth that I grew up hearing was just that: a myth. It turns out that a woman from Gallifrey found a child alone on a distant planet.” The Doctor pauses and swallows, her eyebrows creasing for a moment before she continues. “ _Me._ She found me. I don’t remember any of this. The Master showed me in the Matrix, but it was like watching a movie about someone else’s life.”

“What happened to you?” Yaz asks, “what did you see?”

“I had the ability to regenerate, and when the woman who adopted me found out she experimented on me.” Yaz can tell that the Doctor feels uncomfortable describing this, she says the word _me_ as though trying it out for the first time. Yaz can imagine it must be hard to see a whole life you can’t remember. “She kept experimenting until she figured out the genetic code for regeneration.”

“Wait.” There’s an idea forming in Yaz’s head, so awful that she doesn’t want to believe it. “When you say she experimented, do you mean she tried to make you regenerate?”

The Doctor nods. “She went through several bodies.”

“She killed you!” Yaz practically yells. “How could someone do something so awful?” The Doctor just shrugs and Yaz’s heart aches for her friend. “I am so sorry.”

“It was a very long time ago. So many lives ago. More than I know. One day I’ll need to find the truth, but for now I just want to spend some time with you lot, seeing the stars and going to resort planets – but not the ones that try to kill us.”

“Let’s drink our tea while watching the stars,” Yaz says. She loves it when they sit with their feet dangling in space. Everything seems possible then. She knows the Doctor loves it too. It’s a comfort to them both, and Yaz doesn’t know how else to comfort the Doctor right now.

“Brilliant idea,” the Doctor agrees. “What do you say River?”

“You know how much I love watching the stars with you and the old girl.”

“When River was first River, this was her favorite thing,” The Doctor tells Yaz.

River smiles at her wife. “You were still a mystery, but I knew I could trust the TARDIS and the stars. And they both vouched for you.”

The Doctor’s eyes go impossibly soft again as she looks at River.

“How long have you been together?” Yaz asks

“A couple millennia,” the Doctor says. “From my perspective that is. Give or take a few billion years in a confession dial.”

“Only a few centuries for me,” River tells Yaz. “Big age gap.”

The Doctor shakes her head fondly, her free hand resting on River’s knee just under her robe and caressing her skin. “I never thought we would have forever until now.”

Yaz’s brain is starting to hurt again. Time is always so confusion when the Doctor explains it. “A billion years sounds like a long time.”

“I had already lost River then. Or I thought I had. I watched River die the day I met her, but she came back to me.” The Doctor’s eyes are filled with wonder.

The tea kettle whistles breaking the moment and Yaz gets up to make the tea.

A few moments later and they’re all together with legs dangling from the side of the TARDIS. The Doctor is sat is the middle of Yaz and River watching a peaceful sky full of stars. For a while they just sit together and watch. Yaz loses herself in the beauty and the vastness of the sky. She doesn’t know if she could give this up.

Beside her she hears the Doctor ask, “You alright?” It’s then that Yaz realizes that River is crying. The Doctor is gently wiping the tears from River’s cheeks, her palm cupping River’s face.

“I never thought I would see the stars again,” River tells her wife. “I dreamed of this. This exact moment here with you.”

The Doctor is teary herself as she wraps her free arm around River’s back. “But this time it’s real. You couldn’t feel my hands like this in there could you? Not real like this?” River gives a small shake of her head. The Doctor’s fingers are moving along River’s face, a gentle touch to steady her and remind her she’s alive. Yaz should excuse herself but she doesn’t want to break the moment and neither the Doctor nor River seem to even notice she’s here. “Besides,” the Doctor whispers, and Yaz can’t help but stare at her fingers as they run across River’s temple. “Your brain wouldn’t have dreamed up Yaz here would it.”

River laughs then, the Doctor grinning at her before pulling River against her chest and kissing the top of her head, before turning towards Yaz to apologize. “Sorry, we can get a bit sentimental.”

Oddly it’s stopped making Yaz uncomfortable. She finds herself comforted being in the presence of these two women showing each other affection so openly. Still she feels she should offer - “I can go back to bed.”

“You don’t have to,” River says with a genuine smile.

“Of course not, Yaz,” the Doctor agrees. “Watching the stars with my wife and Yasmin Khan. Couldn’t think of a better night.”

“Do you mean that?” the words are out before Yaz can stop herself. “Because for so long you haven’t wanted to share anything with me or Graham or Ryan. And I thought maybe you don’t trust us, and you would rather just travel alone with River.”

It’s River’s turn to offer to excuse herself then, which Yaz immediately declines. She is not chasing away a woman who just came back from the dead.

“I love traveling with you,” the Doctor tells her, and Yaz sees only honestly on her face. “I’m so sorry I ever made you doubt that. You’re my fam, that’s not going to change.”

“But River’s your real family, and you just found each other again.”

“Time machine,” the Doctor says with a smile. “Loads of time for group trips, and trips with the wife, and for River to steal the old girl to break into a museum full of ancient artifacts or whatever very naughty hijinks she has planned without telling me.”

“Ok,” Yaz agrees. There’s more to think about, but for now she decides she still wants more time seeing the stars.

“Do you want to talk to me now Yaz? I saw you crying. You almost died today, and you saw so many awful things you never should have seen.”

“I thought you were dead. I thought you had gone and sacrificed yourself for all of us. I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without you in it. And we got home, and I didn’t know what my life was supposed to be if it wasn’t here travelling with you.”

“Yasmin Khan, you are brilliant. Your life is wherever you want it to be. I don’t want to get you killed because of me. I let you put yourself in far too dangerous situations. I led you to believe that you were safe. And that is my fault. I should have warned you that most people who travel with me end up dying.”

“That’s life though, isn’t it, Doctor? Everyone dies.”

“Not everyone is murdered at 19 by a Cyberman. The last woman I travelled with was converted into a Cyberman. She has only two years older than you are. Before that I lost River. I lost her parents because they were thrown back in time and trapped there. You have to know that it isn’t safe to travel with me.”

“Now you’ve told me. And I’ve seen the Cybermen for myself. I can make my own decision.” Yaz can see the Doctor’s face still looks pained. “Hey, let’s just enjoy the stars now.”

The Doctor and River watch the stars, their bodies pressed together, fingers caressing each other’s skin. They look so content to be together and so very much in love. The Doctor’s doe eyes expression still a novelty. Yaz has never imagined marriage to be like this before. Her parents like each other well enough, but they’re certainly never physically affectionate. Yaz had imagined marriage as a way of ensuring safety and children and family – the life she grew up knowing was expected of her. That picture always involved a husband. Now as she sits here so comfortable with these woman, one who she’s finally admitted to herself she has had a crush on for the last two years, she wonders how much of her resistance to the life she was expected to live was that it involved a man beside her. “Shit,” Yaz murmurs.

“What?” the Doctor asks, her focus turning to Yaz.

“I think I like women. Sorry, didn’t mean to blurt that out.”

“Well that’s brilliant,” the Doctor tells her with a smile. Right, alien. Yaz didn’t even think that maybe that isn’t something that every species gets hung up on.

“Sweetie,” River says, “I think you forget that Yaz is from a time when that’s still not accepted by everyone on Earth.”

“Right, sorry Yaz. I forget how much humans focus on gender. Time Lords change back and forth a lot, so I didn’t grow up thinking much about it.”

“Oh, so you two don’t have a preference for any gender then?”

River replies, “It’s convenient when your husband shows back up as your stunning wife.”

“Some Time Lords do,” the Doctor adds, “But most don’t. What about you Yaz?”

“I, well, I’m just realizing that I think I like women and not guys. I don’t really know for sure. Haven’t tried it out yet.” She blushes.

“Welcome to the club of loving women then,” River says, picking up her tea from behind her and holding it up to Yaz in a toast. “We should celebrate with champagne.”

“I don’t drink,” Yaz tells River. “And besides, I’m not sure I’m at the celebrating stage yet. More of the panicking about what my family will think stage.”

The Doctor looks confused for a moment. “Do you think your family will be upset?” Yaz shrugs, but yes, of course she’s worried about that, even if her alien best friend can’t imagine it. “I doubt it,” the Doctor says with confidence. “Your nani obviously understands that marrying for love is the most important thing in the universe. And your mum asked if we were dating when I met her.”

A terrifying idea strikes Yaz. “Do you think my mum suspects that I’m…”

“Would that be a bad thing?” the Doctor asks.

Yaz remembers then that the Doctor has just confided that her own mother murdered her and experimented on her. “I’m sorry. You just told me how your mum tortured you. I shouldn’t be complaining to you.”

The Doctor shrugs it off. “You’re my fam, and this is important. You can travel with me for as long as you want. But you have another family back on Earth who loves you. I don’t want you to travel because you’re afraid you need to run from them.”

Yaz feels her eyes burning. Is that what she’s been doing? Running from her family. She’s been running from this from herself, hasn’t she? Refusing to admit that her infatuation with the Doctor could possibly mean that Yaz was a lesbian. “You’re right. I’m afraid of how they’re going to react. I’m not brave like my nani was when she married Prem.”

“You are one of the bravest people I have ever met,” the Doctor tells her.

“I don’t feel brave.”

It’s River who speaks now. “I grew up on 20th century Earth. I know how brave coming out is. Is this the first time you’ve told anyone?” Yaz nods around the lump in her throat. “I think that is plenty brave enough for today. We can all enjoy the stars and each other for now. We have a time machine – and unlike my wife, I know how to fly her properly. We can drop you off with your family whenever you’re ready. Until then stick with us.”

Yaz feels a few tears trickle down her cheeks. She nods her appreciation and turns her face back towards the stars.


End file.
